Student Ambassador Blog

Riding the Wave

Welcome to my very first blog post! I Being that this is my first blog post, I figured I’d start with the story behind why I’m here today:

As an undergraduate, I attended Cal-State Fullerton, where I majored in Kinesiology. During my time at CSUF, I developed passion and love for surfing. In fact, surfing became such an important occupation in my life (defined as meaningful activity) so much so that I decided to take the surfing class offered at CSUF four times! During each semester taking the class, I was assigned to do a project that would increase my awareness and education regarding surf culture. For one of my projects, I decided to write a paper about surfing and explain a therapeutic purpose as to why I engage in it. In my research I came across the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation, an organization that utilizes ocean and surf therapy to facilitate meaningful activity and foster therapeutic relationships for children with special needs and Veterans who are living with PTSD. After doing more digging, I found out that the program was started by an occupational therapist who was a product of USC’s OT Doctorate program (USC’s very own alumni, Dr. Carly Rogers!) To realize that you can utilize something that you love to do and use it as a means to help people pretty much solidified my career aspirations of becoming an OT. Coming full circle, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Rogers when she spoke to our class during my first summer session within the program! Here’s a snap of Dr. Rogers and I, the OT that ignited my journey. Thank you, Dr. Carly Rogers!

As I continue on my journey as an OT student, I can definitely say that it’s been a fun, enlightening, and rewarding ride thus far, and I’m stoked that I’ll be able to share with you my experiences. As I continue to enjoy this ride, stay tuned for more of my adventures as I continue to grow within our program and profession.